Love this! I’m with Nicole—you make me want to be there..gorgeous imagery throughout. I wonder about using a simile for the mint sprigs. ‘Mint sprigs like fingers’—really bad simile, but you get the idea and can come up with something better than fingers lol
My just-turned-ten-year-old niece thinks I hung the moon. She always has. I love her siblings in different ways, but this is the way I love her. It's a burden. It's unimaginably beautiful. To find her crying because her older sister hurt her feelings, and to sit with her and listen to her and to let her words--"I'm the one in the family who is least loved"--tear at my soul. Because I felt like that when I was a child. To be told she'd been counting the days until my visit. She apologized for letting me down when the waterpark we were planning to go to closed for the day due to 30 mph winds. She is magic--but every single poem I've written about her has fallen flat
Such a beautiful relationship! I relate to so much of this — especially how impossible it is to write poems about people who hold that much magic. So glad she has you ☺️
It was almost a year since mom had died. October 2022. I decided to take a road trip ahead of the first anniversary. To clear my head. I booked a solo stay in Palm Springs, a place I had not visited in years. I felt heavy, cloaked in grief and anxiety. I have been a solo traveler all my life, but mom’s voice on the other end of the phone was my companion. I was trembling. I was so scared to go. My husband kissed my forehead and reassured me he was a phone call away. I white knuckled the steering wheel all the way to highway 5. As I crested the hill, the sun lazily rising, it cast a gold glow over all in front of me. My playlist switched to an open instrumental song that can only be described as falling. I had not cried since the night before my mom died during a fight with my sister that changed everything. Here, with the sun bleached road ahead of me, the tears came fast and hard and I sobbed with all the love I had in my heart. As soon as the tears started, they were gone. The song ended. I finally felt something I had not felt in over ten years. Peace. And that maybe, finally, things would be alright.
Wow! Really strong grief writing. I especially like ‘white knuckled the steering wheel.’ And the fight with the sister—that’s potentially its own poem. Lots to work with here
Gorgeous grief work, Nicole! I love the supportive role your husband plays and agree with T that the fight with the sister that changed everything sounds like its own story waiting to be told, when you’re ready to tell it. I also love “song that can only be described as falling” ❤️
I wake to the warmth of your curled little body, so close to mine it mimics how you must’ve been in the womb. I inhale your sweet baby scent and snuggle back in. The delicious drift in and out of dreams is interrupted as your sister barges in like a bomb. Her feety pajamas unzipped, one leg escaped, dragging the empty jammmy leg behind her. She jumps up and down a couple times, ready for fun, but thankfully reads the room and settles in between me and daddy who is just starting to stir. In this moment, there is nothing else I need or want in this world. Just us, cuddled up together, as the sun rises, and inevitability the day must start. Ahead of us, are play dates, birthday parties, errands, yardwork, cooking, cleaning, paying bills, and all the things we think make a life, but no. Life is made up of these tiny moments of love in between all the obligations and invitations. The four of us all nestled in together amidst sleep crusted eyes, morning, breath, squishy diapers, and bed head. My heart overflowing with love, gratitude, and contentment. Somebody’s tummy growls and daddy asks, “who wants pancakes?”
You say "magic," and I'm back in Egypt like it was this morning.
--
July 2017
That beige of sand everywhere.
Palm trees. Dates. Guavas. Peeling
grape leaves off each other for mahshi.
--
Heat, the incredible heat, sweat
the only story you can tell, the only story
anyone will believe. The blessed coolness of
--
tile mosque floors. Red Ahmad tea with
whole sprays of mint sticking out. Lines
curving into domes, minarets, letters: the
--
best of these is ع, the one I can’t pronounce,
the one beginning my best friend’s name.
She who makes loneliness impossible.
--
Lions guarding a Nile bridge. Diving in
knowing crocodiles are kept above the dam.
Panicking when fear, deeper than knowledge,
--
surfaces. Drying in minutes in Saharan sun.
Lanterns in Khan el-Khalili bazaar. Blue scarab
bracelet. An Uber driver flossing his teeth with a 20-pound note.
--
The fine night air, café tables embraced
by friends’ faces. No Egyptian has ever
called someone "stranger."
--
The impossible lime of molokhia soup.
The impossible blue of the Sea.
The impossible layering of history upon history.
And him.
This is so evocative and rich with imagery. Like a scene I want to be in.
Tumbling out? Spilling out?
Love this! I’m with Nicole—you make me want to be there..gorgeous imagery throughout. I wonder about using a simile for the mint sprigs. ‘Mint sprigs like fingers’—really bad simile, but you get the idea and can come up with something better than fingers lol
I don't like "sticking out" for the mint sprigs but my vocabulary was failing me. Suggestions?
My just-turned-ten-year-old niece thinks I hung the moon. She always has. I love her siblings in different ways, but this is the way I love her. It's a burden. It's unimaginably beautiful. To find her crying because her older sister hurt her feelings, and to sit with her and listen to her and to let her words--"I'm the one in the family who is least loved"--tear at my soul. Because I felt like that when I was a child. To be told she'd been counting the days until my visit. She apologized for letting me down when the waterpark we were planning to go to closed for the day due to 30 mph winds. She is magic--but every single poem I've written about her has fallen flat
She will be writing poems about you one day ♥️
I love this so much! She’s so lucky to have you. I was that child. So, to be seen, that might be the magic!
Such a beautiful relationship! I relate to so much of this — especially how impossible it is to write poems about people who hold that much magic. So glad she has you ☺️
Playlist Synchronicity
It was almost a year since mom had died. October 2022. I decided to take a road trip ahead of the first anniversary. To clear my head. I booked a solo stay in Palm Springs, a place I had not visited in years. I felt heavy, cloaked in grief and anxiety. I have been a solo traveler all my life, but mom’s voice on the other end of the phone was my companion. I was trembling. I was so scared to go. My husband kissed my forehead and reassured me he was a phone call away. I white knuckled the steering wheel all the way to highway 5. As I crested the hill, the sun lazily rising, it cast a gold glow over all in front of me. My playlist switched to an open instrumental song that can only be described as falling. I had not cried since the night before my mom died during a fight with my sister that changed everything. Here, with the sun bleached road ahead of me, the tears came fast and hard and I sobbed with all the love I had in my heart. As soon as the tears started, they were gone. The song ended. I finally felt something I had not felt in over ten years. Peace. And that maybe, finally, things would be alright.
Wow! Really strong grief writing. I especially like ‘white knuckled the steering wheel.’ And the fight with the sister—that’s potentially its own poem. Lots to work with here
Thank you. I’m still figuring out how I am going to write the sister part without the sister getting upset
Always a difficult thing, for sure.
Gorgeous grief work, Nicole! I love the supportive role your husband plays and agree with T that the fight with the sister that changed everything sounds like its own story waiting to be told, when you’re ready to tell it. I also love “song that can only be described as falling” ❤️
Thanks!
..an instrumental song that can only be described as falling…exquisite!!
So true! Especially love ‘barges in like a bomb’. The alliteration in it and how it adds tension to this quiet moment
Saturday
I wake to the warmth of your curled little body, so close to mine it mimics how you must’ve been in the womb. I inhale your sweet baby scent and snuggle back in. The delicious drift in and out of dreams is interrupted as your sister barges in like a bomb. Her feety pajamas unzipped, one leg escaped, dragging the empty jammmy leg behind her. She jumps up and down a couple times, ready for fun, but thankfully reads the room and settles in between me and daddy who is just starting to stir. In this moment, there is nothing else I need or want in this world. Just us, cuddled up together, as the sun rises, and inevitability the day must start. Ahead of us, are play dates, birthday parties, errands, yardwork, cooking, cleaning, paying bills, and all the things we think make a life, but no. Life is made up of these tiny moments of love in between all the obligations and invitations. The four of us all nestled in together amidst sleep crusted eyes, morning, breath, squishy diapers, and bed head. My heart overflowing with love, gratitude, and contentment. Somebody’s tummy growls and daddy asks, “who wants pancakes?”